Samantha’s Favorite Reads of 2011!
As another year comes to an end, a fun thing we book bloggers like to do is look back and crown our favorites of all favorites when it comes to books we read. Throughout 2011, I read and reviewed 143 books, a twenty-two book increase compared to 2010. Not too shabby considering I also published my own novel and started CLP Blog Tours! I can’t wait to see what 2012 has in store for me, but for now, let’s reflect on my Favorites of 2011!
Not too long ago, I gingerly accepted a review request for Teresa Medeiros’s Goodnight Tweetheart, a novel made up mostly of Tweets. I say gingerly because I thought, “Tweets? How could readers understand and connect with characters by reading their Twitter thoughts?” I gave the novel 4 ½ stars.
Proven wrong, I now eagerly accepted to read the debut by Cavanaugh Lee, Save As Draft. This novel is written mostly in email messages, along with a few tweets, texts, and Facebook updates along the way. The story follows Izzy Chin as she tries to find love. She joins E-Harmony and connects with Martin, and they have an instant connection. Through technology, they decide they could meet in person. One wildly successful date later, Izzy dumps Martin after deciding to take a chance on her best friend Peter. Peter and Izzy fall in love, as readers can depict from the sappy emails and TMI Facebook status updates, and quickly get engaged. But when Peter starts acting like he is married to his job, Izzy feels lost in the shuffle. She knows it may be wrong, be she drifts back to Martin, who is overly hopeful he can make a relationship with Izzy work. Readers can see how different the outcome could have been, if only some of the characters would just hit send.
The ending I think will shock everyone. I actually started shouting after I closed this book. But in a good way, a way that made me think. What if we were just honest with each other? What if we didn’t have technology allowing us to censor our thoughts and emotions? Save As Draft is definitely on my Favorites List. I loved getting to know characters a different way, and the added friendships of Izzy’s and their take on marriage brings in the comedic relief. The subjects touched in this novel are actually very serious, and I appreciate how this story is told with such honesty and validity in the technology crazed world we live in. I highly recommend this book, and looks forward to more from newcomer Cavanaugh Lee.
Rating: 5
Debut Authors & Novels February/March 2011
Title: Faking It
Author: Lotte Daley
Available: February 17th
Synopsis: It’s not you, it’s me. That’s the cowardly text message that Katie receives from Jack, her actor boyfriend of three years, when he dumps her. And things go from bad to worse when photos of Jack canoodling with a famous size-zero actress are splashed across every gossip magazine and tabloid soon after. Just how much humiliation can a girl take? With the paparazzi camped out on her doorstep, Katie decides to preserve what’s left of her dignity. So she agrees to become her PR colleagues’ next project. They will make her over (hair, teeth, clothes, Botox, boobs – the works) and turn her into an instant celebrity in order to win back her ex and show the world that an ordinary girl can rival a beautiful bimbo. But will a new life in the limelight be everything Katie dreamt of? Can she make it in the cut-throat world of the beautiful, rich and famous? Is Jack worth all the hassle or is there someone else out there who might love Katie just the way she is?
Title: What You Don’t Know
Author: Lizzie Enfield
Available: February 2011
Synopsis: You’ve been together for fifteen years. You’ve got two gorgeous kids and a great career. All the boxes are ticked. You wouldn’t be tempted by a plain, slightly balding man called Graham…Would you? When Graham Parks walks into Helen Collins’ life, the last thing she expects is to fall for him. He’s nothing like her handsome, successful husband, Alex. But fifteen years is a long time and Helen can’t help wondering what it would be like to sleep with someone else. Has Alex secretly been thinking the same thing? As harmless flirtation develops into something far more complicated, Helen’s perfect world begins to look shaky. It’s exciting, alluring, all-consuming. But is it worth the risk?
Title: Born Under A Lucky Moon
Author: Dana Precious
Available: February 8th
Synopsis: Born Under a Lucky Moon is the tale of two very important (but distant) years in the lives of Jeannie Thompson and her (embarrassing, crazy) colorful family members to whom “things” just seem to happen. From the Great Lakes of Michigan to Los Angeles and back again, it is a story of surprise marriages, a renegade granny, a sprinkler system cursed by the gods, and myriad other factors Jeannie blames for her full-tilt, out-of-control existence. But it’s also about good surprises—like an unexpected proposal that might just open Jeannie’s eyes to her real place among the people she loves most in the world . . . the same ones she ran far away from to begin with.
Title: Save As Draft
Author: Cavanaugh Lee
Available: February 1st
Synopsis: Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011
From: Izabell
To: Reader
Subject: Save as Draft
Are we Facebook friends yet? I’m the wactress (waitress/actress) turned lawyer who lives her life online. (Don’t we all these days?)
Anyway, I’ve got this problem. . . . There’s this guy. His name’s Peter. He’s my best friend and co-worker, and we just started dating, which is potentially a huge mistake. But, that’s not all. There’s this other guy, Marty. I met him on eHarm, and he ran with the bulls in Spain. I can’t get him off my mind. What a mess. I’d love your advice if you can take a second out of your crazy, high-tech life. Shoot me an e-mail. Or text me. Or BB messenger me.
And friend me if you haven’t already! You can find me on Facebook under Save as Draft.
Izabell
Title: Cougars
Author: Claire Irvin
Available: March 2011
Synopsis: Caroline Walker has it all. At 42, her immaculate looks and toned body are of a woman half her age. She’s a successful entrepreneur, and juggles her career with domestic bliss: wife of City trading sensation Les Walker, and mother to their teenage daughter Rachel. But when Caroline learns that Les has been having an affair, her perfect world falls apart. Caroline is suddenly single – something she hasn’t been in a very long time. With the help of Maryanne, her outgoing and ex-Hollywood starlet friend, Caroline’s life is transformed into a glamorous social whirl as she discovers her missing 20s. And the young men she should have been dating then, too … But is Caroline ready to put the past behind her? And can true love really strike twice.
Title: The Hating Game
Author: Talli Roland
Available: March 2011
Synopsis: When man-eater Mattie Johns agrees to star on a dating game show to save her ailing recruitment business, she’s confident she’ll sail through to the end without letting down the perma-guard she’s perfected from years of her love ’em and leave ’em dating strategy.
After all, what can go wrong with dating a few losers and hanging out long enough to pick up a juicy £200,000 prize? Plenty, Mattie discovers, when it’s revealed that the contestants are four of her very unhappy exes.
Can Mattie confront her past to get the prize money she so desperately needs, or will her exes finally wreak their long-awaited revenge? And what about the ambitious TV producer whose career depends on stopping her from making it to the end.
Chick Lit Plus – Guest Blog
How To Balance Writing with a Day Job
My first novel, SAVE AS DRAFT, was released on February 1, 2011. I spent the past week in my home town, San Francisco, promoting the book and I just flew back to Savannah, Georgia, my current state of residence, where I had the honor of speaking to a bunch of aspiring writers this weekend. I head to Atlanta on Tuesday where SAD (as those of us in-the-know appropriately call it for short) is set. All in all, it’s been a whirlwind of a week. Had anyone told me a couple years back that I would one day walk into my local Barnes & Noble and see my dream come true – my book on the shelf at the front of the store – I would have, well, laughed out loud.
For any writer, you’ll never have a moment like it. I’m an attorney by day (a federal prosecutor), and the closest I’ve come to feeling like I felt at B&N was when I won my first criminal trial. I was an idealistic new prosecutor (I still am) when I heard the jury read the verdict aloud – “Guilty”. I sat there stunned as my co-counsel, a very seasoned trial attorney, leaned over and whispered into my ear: “Take it in. You’ll never have a first again. It’ll always feel slightly different after this.”
I’ve often wondered if he’s right. Will it feel different after SAD? I only have one book to go on so I only know how it feels now. And it’s a thrill!
It’s also simultaneously hard and wonderful to go back to your day job. I haven’t officially returned to prosecuting full-time as I still have another week and a half to promote SAD. I took two weeks off from work to devote to promotion. I did, however, return to my office for one day – last Friday – to make sure that none of my cases had imploded, check voicemails, respond to emails, etc. As I walked inside, I felt a tremendous surge of excitement and fear. And fatigue… I was pretty darn tired.
For the last year, those three words have summarized the process of writing a book while working a challenging day job, all at the same time: excitement, fear, and fatigue. It’s tough. Tough, I tell you. But, all you writers reading this already know what I’m talking about – unless you are fortunate enough to be either independently wealthy or married to a millionaire. Alas I have neither so I kept my day job.
Oddly enough, that is the question I’ve been asked the most while promoting SAD: Are you going to keep your day job as you write your second book? My immediate response was always the same:
“I would be presumptuous to assume that there will be a second book although I sure as heck hope there will be one (I mean, two). And, I would be even more presumptuous to assume that I would be paid a “Stephanie Meyer advance.” These sorts of things just don’t happen too often. So, my assumption (and presumption) is that I will likely have to keep my day job while I write my second book. Sigh…”
But is it really a “sigh”…? If a genie in a bottle granted me one wish – to be able to write full time and quit my day job – would I do it? My answer is:
I don’t know.
I don’t know?! Shouldn’t it be a resounding YES??!!!
I don’t know…
When speaking to fifteen aspiring writers yesterday, that same question was posed to me yet again:
“Are you going to quit your day job if given the chance?”
One woman volunteered:
“I mean, that’s every writer’s dream. Harper Lee’s sister and brother gave her enough money to live on for a year while she finished TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. That is the greatest gift that any writer could be given.”
Hmm. I thought about that for the rest of the day. Is that really the greatest gift that any writer could be given? A year off to do nothing but write… I think it isn’t. The greatest gift that any writer can be given, that was given to me two years ago, is this:
A great story.
Maybe the second greatest gift any writer could be given is a year off to write. Although I’m not so sure about that even. As hard as it is to work two full-time jobs, I don’t know how well I’d write if it became a “luxury.” Isn’t there some truth to the saying, “the greatest inspiration is often born of desperation?” Didn’t Hemingway write his best when he was over-worked, poor, and sleeping on a couch at The Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris? Of course, there is Harper Lee…
I just don’t know.
What I do know is this: I wrote SAVE AS DRAFT while working full-time as an attorney. I stuck to my schedule like glue – I practiced law Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM to 6 PM, and I wrote from 7 to 11:30 PM; on the weekends, I wrote five to eight hours. I rarely strayed from my rigid plan. I turned down late nights out with my friends at cool new bars. I declined dates from possible suitors, thereby eradicating any semblance of a love life from inception. I skipped out early on holiday dinners to go back to typing away on my laptop. I did (or didn’t do) all of these things except for one:
I did not quit my day job, nor did it even occur to me to lessen my caseload.
Why? Because our day jobs keep us grounded, remind us what is “for real,” and preserve our honest outlook on life and everything that comes along with it. Sometimes our day jobs can even inspire our writing. My story for SAD in many ways was borne from my day job two years ago. And I have a feeling my second book will follow a similar pattern. While it’s hard… so hard… to live on a little less sleep at night in order to get that chapter finished and somehow squeeze it in between cooking dinner and watching an episode of “Modern Family,” if you manage to do it – and do it successfully – you’ll appreciate the result all the more.
Yes, the greatest inspiration is often born of desperation.
Let’s face it, how desperate can one really be when she has everything she’s ever wanted in life in front of her computer screen?
So, back to that Barnes & Noble… and Harper Lee… You cannot imagine my joy at seeing that my first book – the one I wrote while working hard prosecuting crimes and fighting hard to keep our streets a safer place – was somehow miraculously placed on the bookshelf right next to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD…
(INSERT PICTURE)
Wow. Wonders never cease…
So to all of you who have to work a full-time day job in order to reach your dreams at night, I applaud you! It’s so worth it.
In My Mailbox: Week of February 9, 2011
Title: Like Casablanca
Author: Sylvia Massara
Received: From Sylvia Massara
Synopsis: What does internet dating and Casablanca have in common? Nothing, unless you go to Rick’s Cafe and find out what dating blogger, Cat Ryan, is up to. Cat’s doing research for her internet dating blog, and the place she chooses to meet her many dates is Rick’s Cafe in Sydney. But what of its disturbingly handsome owner, Rick Blake? What does he think, seeing her with a different man each time?
Title: Personally I Blame My Fairy Godmother
Author: Claudia Carroll
Received: From Charlotte Allen @ Avon Publicity
Synopsis: Jessie Woods absolutely believes in fairytale endings. So would you if you had a recession-proof career as a daredevil TV host, a palatial pink mansion, and the dream boyfriend.
But, quicker than you can say Cinderella, her life falls to pieces and suddenly her prince isn’t quite so charming, her party-loving friends disappear and even her faithful friend Visa no longer loves her…
Utterly heartbroken and jobless, Jessie is forced back home, to live with her stepmum and two evil stepsisters.
Title: Save As Draft
Author: Cavanaugh Lee
Received: From Amanda Ferber @ Simon & Shuster
Synopsis: Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011
From: Izabell
To: Reader
Subject: Save as Draft
Are we Facebook friends yet? I’m the wactress (waitress/actress) turned lawyer who lives her life online. (Don’t we all these days?)
Anyway, I’ve got this problem. . . . There’s this guy. His name’s Peter. He’s my best friend and co-worker, and we just started dating, which is potentially a huge mistake. But, that’s not all. There’s this other guy, Marty. I met him on eHarm, and he ran with the bulls in Spain. I can’t get him off my mind. What a mess. I’d love your advice if you can take a second out of your crazy, high-tech life. Shoot me an e-mail. Or text me. Or BB messenger me.
And friend me if you haven’t already! You can find me on Facebook under Save as Draft.
Izabell
Title: Irresistible Forces
Author: Brenda Jackson
Received: Via Amazon Kindle Shop
Synopsis: One week of mind-blowing sex on a beautiful Caribbean island. Of all the business proposals financial tycoon Dominic Saxon has heard, Taylor Steele’s is definitely the most tempting. All Taylor wants in return is for Dominic to father her baby. No strings, no commitments.just a mutually satisfying arrangement. Make that very satisfying. For a man with no intention of marrying again, it sounds ideal.
Taylor wants a baby, not a relationship. And sexy, intelligent Dominic seems like a man with perfect genes. Turns out, Dominic has perfect everything. Their “procreation vacation” is a whirlwind of sensual ecstasy. But when it’s over, will either of them be able to say goodbye?
Is it time for her to give up on the dream – or will Jessie learn that happy endings can come in the strangest of places?
